You likely have heard me rave about the Shaker style boxes by a local artist. He uses beautiful woods: maple, walnut, pine, cherry, curly maple and even exotic woods. His work is not only beautiful, it is perfect as sewing boxes. They are also great for gifts. I neglected to take photos of the presentation Shaker box I lined for Lily. The long narrow shape made it ideal for her knitting needles as well as sewing notions.

This weekend, I finally finished lining a few of them I picked up this past summer. Each one is lined with 100% silk over pasteboard, using Fanciful Utility techniques. These linings are not permanently attached so not to damage the beautiful wood.

I tried a couple different techniques for sewn connections for the two pieces each box needed for the walls. Initially, I did not want to use the overlap method as I wanted a smooth wall. It turns out, this gives the strongest connection. It was great for the tray. The smoothest connection was the diagonal. At least while it was in the pasteboard only stage. I am hoping the pasteboard will relax back against the wood as it was prior to being covered on silk.

I selected a dark shot brown silk taffeta for this box to bring out the stripes in the exotic zebra stripe wood in the lid. The lining has two pockets in the sides. It will be finished with matching silk pin cushion and needle-book as original Shaker sewing boxes had.

This shallow walnut box wanted a simple lining with some dividers.

The diagonal divider is flexible. It can arc in making a smaller space or arc out for a larger space.

This deeper painted box made the most sense with a tray. The bottom is line halfway up with an open space for larger tools or a project. The removable tray has three compartments. The silkribbons make it easy to lift out. I wanted the tray to be lose rather than snug so it was easy to get in and out. It does tip along the length. If I could get the bottom back out, I would add two small compared to minimize tipping. But, that link find really in there.

A couple of these will be available in my Etsy shop. Others already have homes or were gifts. I think I have one more that may be available, a light pine one the size of the yellow one.